Feds had claimed documents related to giving telecom companies retroactive immunity from spying-related lawsuits couldn't be ready until December 31, but a judge disagreed.

Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Belgium have the worst telecommunications regulators in Europe, according to a study carried out for the European Competitive Telecom Association (ECTA), an industry group that promotes the interests of new entrants into the market.The annual study, available on ECTA's Web site, compares the telecom regulatory environment and the application of the current legislative framework in 19 European countries. Top of the class were the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and France."This year’s results show that countries where regulators have taken action to enable competition to flourish, including the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, have seen strong performance in their telecom markets. However, others including Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece have fallen behind," ECTA said in a statement.It added that "institutional weaknesses" may be preventing Germany, Belgium, and Finland from reaching their full potential.The study, dubbed the 2007 Scorecard, shows the impact of weak competition on consumers."If you are paying high prices for broadband, it may be because your regulator has not been able to open the market to competition," said Innocenzo Genna, chairman of ECTA, in prepared remarks at a conference in Brussels on Wednesday.ECTA supports the European Commission's plans to change telecom rules. In particular, it backs moves to allow regulators the power to break up an incumbent operator if it isn't giving rival service providers fair access to the infrastructure, such as the "local loop" of telephone lines that lead directly into people's homes and offices.Meanwhile, the Commission took Bulgaria to court on Wednesday for failing to police its telecom market "independently and effectively." Bulgaria joined the European Union at the beginning of this year, but it was supposed to have applied all the E.U.-wide rules concerning market access and fair competition in the telecom sector before its arrival.Viviane Reding, commissioner for telecom at the European Commission, attended the ECTA's conference in Brussels. In her keynote speech, she thanked ECTA for supporting the reforms she is trying to push through, but she warned that it will be a "hard fight" ensuring that the changes she has proposed get adopted.As well as proposing that functional separation should be introduced as a remedy to instill fair competition, she also called for the creation of an E.U.-wide telecom market authority to ensure that all national regulators apply the same rules in all markets. Functional separation calls for operators to set up separate units to manage and sell network services."We shall have to fight hard in the coming months to ensure that this vision of a competitive single market for the telecom sector becomes a reality. I count on your continuing support," Reding said.

AP - An electronic privacy group challenging President Bush's domestic spying program scored a minor victory after a judge ordered the federal government to release information about lobbying efforts by telecommunications companies to protect them from prosecution.

The European Commission has signed off on two big technology mergers, approving SAP's acquisition of Business Objects and Vodafone's purchase of the Spanish and Italian subsidiaries of the Swedish telecom group Tele2.The Commission said it approved SAP's takeover of the BI software vendor Business Objects after concluding that the combined entity would not unfairly dominate the market."The combined SAP/Business Object entity would continue to face several strong competitors, and customers would find sufficient alternative suppliers of such software products," the Commission said.SAP sells primarily middleware and ERP applications and has just started getting into the BI market, while Business Objects is known for its business analytics software.The Commission said its investigation found no significant risk that the merged entity would be able to close off competitors from the market because SAP's middleware product, Netweaver, is an "open" platform that can work with BI products from multiple vendors.The Commission also gave the green light to Vodafone's expansion plans for the Spanish and Italian broadband Internet access markets, by approving its planned €775 million ($1.1 billion) acquisition of the Spanish and Italian subsidiaries of Tele2."The combined entity's share would be below 10 percent in those markets, and the incremental increase in the share of Vodafone would be small," the Commission said.In Italy and Spain, Vodafone is mainly active as a provider of mobile communications services and is the second largest mobile operator in both countries. Tele2 Italy and Tele2 Spain offer fixed-line telephony services and Internet access, including broadband."The parties' activities only overlap in the retail market for fixed broadband internet access and in the retail market for telephony services at a fixed location, both in Italy and in Spain," the Commission concluded.

The head of France Telecom said his company's Orange subsidiary plans to price unlocked iPhones at between $742 and $1,481 when the popular device goes on sale locally on Wednesday.

Bouygues Telecom has chosen a new solution from Nokia Siemens Networks to improve indoor GSM mobile network coverage for its customers. The innovative solution, featuring small-sized base stations, allows improving and extending coverage for instance in high office

Vox Telecom has already soft-launched it’s ADSL Phone service, and is planning various new offerings to tackle Telkom.

T-Mobile GmbH will sell unlocked iPhones for $1,482, the German mobile carrier said Wednesday, marking the first time Apple's smartphone has been officially available unlocked.Unauthorized hacks, however, have been used for months by customers to unlock their iPhones so they can make calls on multiple networks or use the device in countries where Apple hasn't yet entered the handset market.In a statement Wednesday, T-Mobile said it would immediately start selling unlocked iPhones, and unlock any already-purchased iPhone for no charge. It made both moves in response to a preliminary ruling Monday in a lawsuit brought by Vodafone Group PLC's subsidiary, Vodafone Germany. According to the injunction, which T-Mobile is appealing, Apple's wireless partner must offer the iPhone without a required 24-month contract.The iPhone, which debuted in Germany on Nov. 9, sells for $592, value-added tax included, and has been offered with three rate plans -- called tariffs in Europe -- priced from $73 to $132 per month.U.K.-based Vodafone had been among the mobile service providers negotiating with Apple for exclusive rights to the iPhone, but in Germany, it lost out to the larger T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom.Vodafone has said it isn't interested in blocking sales of the iPhone in Germany, but it wants the courts to level the playing field between carriers. Vodafone did not reach an agreement with Apple in the two other European markets that Apple has entered: Britain and France. Apple's U.K. partner is O2 (UK) Ltd., while Orange, the rebranded France Telecom, won the deal in France, where the iPhone goes on sale on Nov. 29."Apple can be profitable just on the hardware," argued Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research. "More is always better, of course, but by unlocking it for a larger price, Apple gets its money."Gottheil wasn't surprised by Vodafone's move. "There's a great deal more resistance to locked phones in Europe," he said, noting that Apple has already promised to abide by French law, which bans locked cell phones, when it unveils the iPhone there next week."In the end, Apple is a provider of neat devices, and it will always return there," said Gottheil. "If and when it's seriously threatened by a rival, and depending on the duration and terms of its exclusive [contract] with AT&T, I think it would unlock the phone in the U.S. in a second."But even as T-Mobile promised to abide by the injunction while it appeals the ruling, it also said it would retract the offer if it prevails. T-Mobile is also considering filing a lawsuit against Vodafone seeking unspecified damages, said company spokesman Klaus Czerwinski on Wednesday. "We think the law does not apply to this situation," Czerwinski said from Bonn. "We are still going to court."T-Mobile will continue to sell iPhones tied to a contract, the company said Wednesday. As part of its revised pitch, T-Mobile reminded potential customers that some of the iPhone's built-in features, including Visual Voicemail, which lets users pick and choose messages to listen to, work when connected to its network.Apple did not respond to a request for comment.Jeremy Kirk of IDG News Service contributed to this report. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

A battle over legal immunity for telecommunication companies that participated in a controversial Bush administration counterterrorism surveillance program landed on the Senate floor yesterday, after the Judiciary Committee voted to preserve protections for companies who help the government.

A battle over legal immunity for telecommunication companies that participated in a controversial Bush administration counterterrorism surveillance program landed on the Senate floor yesterday, after the Judiciary Committee voted to preserve protections for companies who help the government.

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